Comments and comment spam

Recently someone posted a comment on one of my entries advertising not one URL, but 176 URLs. With Jay Allen’s MT Blacklist plugin for MT 2 (I believe there’s a variant for MT 3), it’s easy to remove. And I can block comments altogether if I go away. Every time I look at the Activity Log, I can see many attempts to post URLs that are already on my blacklist being warded off.

Then there are comments that are not spam. There is a school of blogging that won’t remove anything without a note saying something has been removed, and won’t alter a spelling without indicating by strikethrough what the original error was. I have deleted a few comments, but not always with a note. I remember once deleting a comment by an Austrian who felt the other comments had been getting at Austria and used a swearword or two. I don’t see why swearwords should be smeared all over my comments, unless we’re discussing them, of course.

Werner Patels, who has a German-English translation weblog and sometimes comments here, has stopped comments altogether, in part because some people who comment on his site are just advertising themselves:

bq. In case anyone has wondered: I have disabled the comment feature on this blog. There is simply too much spam flying around out there (not to mention some wise guys who think that their less-than-intelligent comments will get them those “15 minutes of fame”……).

Absolutely right – as the Germans say, ‘Wo er Recht hat, hat er Recht’. I think I’ll take this as my model and if I feel like it, I’ll remove a comment that is just posted for self-aggrandizement. Of course, if I myself post such comments on other people’s weblogs, I would not like to be removed.

9 thoughts on “Comments and comment spam

  1. Werner: Yes, the same applies to my blog. I’ve disabled comments on everything older than a month, but I would post a comment sent by email. I should probably make that clearer somewhere.

    Trevor: Of course you have none left – no wonder after a honeymoon at the Niagara Falls. I suggest you keep your pellagra – you never know when it may come in useful. How about some podagra, or Tanagra?

  2. I disabled comments on posts not appearing on the front page. So I have had a grand total of 2 spam comments in as many months. Result!

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